Tuesday, 30 October 2012

I would say that we need to open ourselves to all that we experience as we experience it. Not making it happen, but allowing it to unfold for life often teaches us things we prefer not to learn about, and those lessons can be delayed, not lost, but will always come back to us, perhaps in a more intense form that we may pay closer attention. We can choose to be great explorers of life itself, or otherwise prevent ourselves from growing and learning.

Friday, 26 October 2012

Yesterday I did away with busy-ness, but what came up was that there seems to be some-thing every day? Some-thing to do... Some-thing to achieve.. I cannot include zazen in that, because zazen is being, even when it feels like doing... Of more value inZen... there needs to be nothing. No thing. Drop stuff. Notice... There may be some resistance to just being in no space experiencing no-thing. But we can be gilling life with a sense of Self, not stuff. I may feel that I need my stuff, but more correctly the mind wants my stuff and doesn't need it at all. How wily the mind can be in its addiction to stuff! Solid stuff of illusion!

Friday, 12 October 2012

In zazen, the mind gets tremendously resistant and thoughts will intrude immensely. We cannot fight the mind, it has had a life-time of conditioning, some believe that is also has previous life-times of conditioning. I prefer to look at NOW and see this enormous "mountain" in front of me, that is probably etched into my genetic memory.

We are looking at a universe with the small space of awareness of what is left to us, that is the Self. Perhaps sharing with you may help...

I get the incessant voices in my head, but there is a small space that can look at those voices and by connecting with that space, it will expand. Slowly or sometimes not so slowly. Sometimes profound and sometimes not so profound.

When the mind is overpowering, I give up and go with it. I deliberately "choose" to have it the way it is. Thoughts may racing around and around. What I have to do today, what I wish I had done or not done, yesterday. By choosing it as it is, I am making it happen, rather than having is happen to me. It's a paradox.

We cannot reach that space of Self as conquerors. We have the long and hard lesson of learning to be patient as we wait for it to come to us. Giving space in our awareness to let be whatever is there, whatever is being. It is totally in the present moment. The mind can only operate from past conditioning, even if it has the illusion that it can form the future. The past and future is never present, it is therefore an illusion.

Enlightenment and Self awareness can only come in this way. It is not created in the mind, because it already exists in all of us and encompasses the mind and all it contains - all the racing, random, trivial thoughts. It is IN our Self (awareness) not encompassing our Self. Self IS awareness.

Sometimes when the mind seems to race around, a question like, "who is watching all this racing around?" can be quite revealing. It is important not to look into the memory, or rationality and to keep discounting whatever the (rational) mind will answer. The only answer that is left then is emptiness. There is nothing (no-thing) there! As self is not a thing.

About Me

If I was to make a statement about my life, it would be.... My life is about Zen or even more specific, life IS Zen.

When people hear that statement they tend to think of me as
a person who constantly meditates, day after day in pursuit of spiritual
perfection, or spiritual realization. But nothing could be further from the
truth.

Whilst it is true that Zen can be the Way of religion, for instance Zen Buddhism, Zen can be applied to anything in life, and I have a
quite a few strong interests in life. I have been a therapist for the past 30
years. Around 25 years ago, I got interested in Zen and it transformed the way I
worked. It is a matter of focus. Through meditation, I developed a mindfulness, and through this mindfulness, I recognized that there is
only now, and if I took care of the "now" by focusing 100% on each
experience and task I worked on, the future worked out the way it was meant to work out.

I am semi-retired from my therapy work now and have found a love of writing. My latest writing venture is about Wales, my homeland.